Can JavaFX Mobile Compete With iPhone?

A couple of days ago, Sun Microsystems announced the availability of a new mobile phone operating environment. It’s called JavaFX Mobile, and it’s based around a Java/Linux software stack. If you look at the image above (both are real phones, running real software), you can see that Sun is aiming squarely at competing with Apple’s soon-to-be-released iPhone which runs an embedded version of MacOS X. The big question is: can JavaFX Mobile compete with iPhone?

I think the answer to that is yes… potentially. However, Sun and its future hardware partners have a lot of work to do. As of today, JavaFX Mobile looks to be pretty buggy, not feature-complete and runs very sluggishly on the hardware that I’ve seen. Obviously, this is a brand new offering so all that is to be expected. However, Sun and its partners will have to run fast to catch up with Apple.

The big difference between JavaFX Mobile devices and iPhone is that all aspects of the former will be open, and programmable, through a rich set of Java APIs; whereas the latter will be an essentially closed device. This is a great selling point for JavaFX Mobile - I know which type of device I’d prefer to own. By the way, while we’re on the topic of “open”, don’t believe Apple’s hype about closed devices being better for the consumer than open devices, because “third-party apps make phones, and even the whole mobile network crash”. I see quite a few people buying into this, and it’s total nonsense. I can assure you, whatever Apple’s business reasons are for keeping iPhone closed, it’s really nothing to do with that.

It’s good to finally see a company stepping up and trying to compete seriously with what Apple is doing. That is, to truly bring “desktop-class” software power to mobile phones. Apple is bringing MacOS X to the party, while Sun is bringing Java SE. Both are super-powerful software platforms on which to build amazing applications. I get the strong impression that current mobile OS makers don’t actually understand what Apple is doing with iPhone, which might explain their rather sorry responses so far. JavaFX Mobile is the first credible attempt I’ve seen at real competition for iPhone.
I hope Sun and their hardware partners can execute well on this - competition is great for the consumer…

Trackbacks & Pings

  1. Blog do Márcio d’Ávila » Novidades Sun e Oracle no JavaOne 2007 on 12 May 2007 at 3:25 am

    [...] Can JavaFX Mobile Compete With iPhone?, por Simon Brocklehurst, 10/05/2007, em seu blog. Veja também JavaFX Mobile versus the iPhone, por David Beers. [...]

Comments

  1. simon wrote:

    David Beers has an interesting perspective on this discussion:

    http://www.pikesoft.com/blog/index.php?itemid=176

    He thinks comparisons of JavaFX Mobile with iPhone are “silly”. I’m replying here because you can’t post a comment on David’s blog without the hassle of registering.

    The issue for Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and the other leaders in this space is that they simply don’t have good answers to iPhone running embedded Mac OS X. It shouldn’t be possible for a new entrant in a market like this to leap-frog the established players by such a margin: iPhone will probably be the best mobile phone on the market by a wide margin (with the exception of the “closed”/”open” thing, which, as I understand it from the Apple shareholder meeting that just happened, they’re figuring out how to address i.e. they’re listening to people that are saying they really want to develop applications for iPhone). So - the established leaders in the market have messed up big time. Now they have to catch up. The might not realise it yet - I suspect many in those companies are still deluding themselves that their current products are competitive with iPhone. But it won’t be long until they all figure out they’ve screwed up on strategy (suffering from too much group-think).

    The question is: what will be the fastest way for them to catch up? JavaFX Mobile might be part of the answer; or, it might not. The devil is really in the detail with that. But, one way or another, the major players all need to take a big step forward in terms of OS/OE platform capability if they’re going to compete with what Apple is doing.

    David asked why SavaJe failed. I suspect a big part of the reason was timing: hardware technology didn’t develop fast enough for them. We’re only now just reaching the point where you can build handsets that can support such high-end software. Apple has their timing 100% spot on with iPhone… but that’s in part because they could afford to wait (Jobs binned at least one iPhone because the hardware technology wasn’t there yet). As a venture capital-funded start-up, SavaJe had to place their bets timing-wise; they had one shot. And they got it wrong.

    Posted 11 May 2007 at 8:56 am

  2. laura evans wrote:

    i was wondering if you could tell me the price of the iphone and how long it would take to get to the uk

    Posted 26 Oct 2007 at 9:51 am

  3. simon wrote:

    Laura, the iPhone is out in the UK on Nov 9, on O2. Price is £269 + monthly contract cost.

    Posted 27 Oct 2007 at 4:55 pm

  4. Lauren wrote:

    hi, do u know when the iphone is coming to Australia and how much it will be. Thanks

    Posted 28 Apr 2008 at 7:28 am

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